When Grand Theft Auto Online launched on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 more than a year ago, players were drawn by the lure of completing high stakes heists with online pals like in Grand Theft Auto V’s single player campaign. More than 13 months of delays later, players are finally about to live out those heist fantasies.

Rockstar has not provided an official date for the addition yet, but in a “thank you” post to GTA Online users on the Rockstar Newswire, the company insists the heists will appear sooner than later:

“We know you’re all excited for more Updates to come and we’ve got some really exciting stuff in the works to continue adding to, expanding and evolving the world of Grand Theft Auto Online – including the highly anticipated launch of Online Heists which will be available for all four consoles as the first GTA Online Update to happen after the game launches on PS4 and Xbox One. We’ll have some details on that very soon as well.”

Earlier this summer, Rockstar apologized for the delay of the multiplayer heists that fans have been clamoring for since GTA Online’s launch on October 1st of last year. Despite this exclusion, Online has shown potential by keeping user interest piqued with 11 free updates over its year-long life.

In an infographic included in the post, Rockstar lists a handful of statistics for the online world including more than 33 million global players, nearly 4 million crews, just under 6 billion jobs played and 10 million jobs created by players.

An interesting aside, Rockstar lists players in 224 countries in their infographic, despite the generally accepted statistic of 196 countries worldwide. In response to multiple questions surrounding the 224 number, Rockstar clarified that they are working by the International Organization for Standardization codes, which lists up to 249 countries.

There’s another fun addition at the bottom of the post. Rockstar states their “records show 7 GTA Online players in the Vatican City State, and 1 player in Antarctica who we are guessing is someone taking a break from work at the South Pole Research Station to escape to Los Santos for a bit!”

GTA Online all the way in Antarctica!

GTA V releases on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on Tuesday, November 18th.

My Opinion:

Some have said it’s “too little too late” regarding heists in GTA Online, but I don’t see that being the case. I imagine people will migrate back to Online on the PS4 and Xbox One, especially with the ability to import player information from last-gen consoles, and enjoy the heists we’ve been waiting so long for now. More than anything, I’m curious to find out the identity of this person playing GTA in Antarctica.

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Brian Hoerst is a dude living in New York City who types using a total of six fingers. He didn’t pay attention to his typing class in middle school. Follow him on Twitter.